2.7 SLA Use Case
2.7.5 Reporting
Integrating SLA Data into Operations Center 25
2.7.1 Data Collection
Acme needs to collect data for ABC Bank’s online banking system and its e‐mail communication as well as Acme’s own trouble ticket system.
Acme needs to collect the following data regarding ABC Bank’s IT infrastructure:
Hardware availability
Database availability
Software availability
The following sections illustrate adapters in the Operations Center console:
“BEM Adapter in the Operations Center Console” on page 25
BEM Adapter in the Operations Center Console
Acme also needs information about Web site and application availability from an end user
perspective for the online banking services. Acme installs the Experience Manager to collect this data and creates an Experience Manager adapter in the Operations Center console to integrate this data into Operations Center.
Figure 2-3 Creating an Experience Manager Adapter
For more information about installing and configuring the Experience Manager, see the Operations Center 5.0 Experience Manager Guide.
Acme already stores its trouble ticket data in an Oracle database and is comfortable managing the data using that system and just wants to maintain it. Acme considers integrating the trouble ticket data into Operations Center, but does not want duplicate data. Therefore, Acme decides to connect Operations Center to the Oracle database to collect the data required for an SLA on the trouble ticket system.
2.7.2 Data Storage
SLA data that is integrated into Operations Center is stored in the Service Warehouse. Acme creates a database and a database definition in Operations Center for the Service Warehouse:
“Database Definition” on page 26
“New Calendar” on page 27
“New Time Definition” on page 28
“Database Definition for an External Data Source” on page 29
For more information, see Section 2.7.2, “Data Storage,” on page 26. Also, for how to create database definitions, see the Operations Center 5.0 Server Configuration Guide.
Database Definition
Figure 2-4 Database Definition for the Business Service Warehouse in Operations Center console
By default, Operations Center calculates SLA data 24 hours a day for 365 days per year based on the default calendar. ABC Bank requires that its services be available 99 percent of the time except for maintenance periods, which occur every Saturday and Sunday night from 1 Am to 5 Am.
Integrating SLA Data into Operations Center 27
New Calendar
To identify maintenance periods, Acme creates a new calendar:
Figure 2-5 New Calendar for ABC Maintenance Periods in Operations Center console
For more information, see Section 2.5, “Managing Time,” on page 18. Also, for more information on how to create calendars, see “Time Categories, Calendars, and Schedules” in the Operations Center 5.0 Server Configuration Guide.)
New Time Definition
For this new calendar, Acme defines a time definition to indicate that Saturday and Sunday, from 1 AM to 5 Am, are maintenance periods.
Figure 2-6 New Time Definition for New Calendar in Operations Center console
This calendar will be applied to the SLAs defined for ABC’s services.
Integrating SLA Data into Operations Center 29
Database Definition for an External Data Source
To connect Operations Center to the data source, which stores trouble ticket data, Acme creates a database definition to an external data source:
Figure 2-7 Database Definition for External Data Source in Operations Center console
2.7.3 Data Relationships
To represent the services for ABC Banking, Acme creates a service model in Operations Center:
Figure 2-8 ABC Banking Service Model
2.7.4 Objective and Service Level Agreement Definitions
“Availability Objective” on page 30
“Outages Objective” on page 31
“SLA Metric Catalog” on page 32
Availability Objective
Acme has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with ABC Bank, which states that all services will have 99 percent availability each month. The SLA is named Standard Availability and applies to the ABC Banking element, and propagates three levels down. It contains an Availability objective, which requires at least 99 percent availability. Note the Maintenance calendar is specified, so that maintenance times (stated earlier) are exempt from the objective requirement.
Figure 2-9 Availability objective tracks the percentage of time that banking services are available.
Integrating SLA Data into Operations Center 31
Outages Objective
The Mail element contains an additional Outages objective for e‐mail communications, which allows one outage lasting no more than one hour per month except unlimited outages during maintenance periods.
Figure 2-10 Outages objective for tracking the e‐mail application
SLA Metric Catalog
Acme management has set up an internal SLA with the customer support center regarding response to trouble tickets. The SLA has a calculation objective (with the SLA metric catalog) for the trouble ticket system.
Acme sets up an element under Service Models called Trouble Ticket System and applies the SLA Metric Catalog to it. The SLA Metric Catalog captures the number of calls received and logged, the initial response time, the number of resolved calls, and the time to resolve a call. For more information, see Section 3.2.3, “Managing the SLA Metric Catalog Properties,” on page 41.
Figure 2-11 SLA Metric Catalog
Integrating SLA Data into Operations Center 33
2.7.5 Reporting
Acme uses the Operations Center dashboard to create a Portal page that is accessible to the line of business owners.
In the Operations Center dashboard, add an SLA Status report to the portal page that reports on the availability of the services. Figure 2‐12 shows the SLA Status Report pointed at the Bank Services element:
Figure 2-12 SLA Status Report
According to the SLA objectives, all services should have at least 99% availability.
The time periods are:
Today Yesterday This Week Last Week This Month Last Month
At a glance, owners can see the SLA objectives are being met. Problem areas are highlighted in red.
In this report, drill down to subelements by simply clicking one of the links in the far left column.
Figure 2‐13 shows the detailed report for the Applications element:
Figure 2-13 SLA Status Report
Review the details for subelements of the Applications branch. When you are ready to return to a higher level, click the Up to ABC Bank link.
For details on creating portal pages and portlets, see the Operations Center 5.0 Dashboard Guide.
The final step is to send the URL to the portal reports to the line of business owner for review.
3
Using External Data Source for SLA Data 35
3
Using External Data Source for SLA Data
SLAs can be based on business metric data stored in an external data source instead of data
integrated into Operations Center. Configure Operations Center to read data from a SQL Server 2005 database or Oracle 10g database, create elements based on this data, define custom properties for these elements and their relationship by creating an SLA metric catalog, and define an objective that measures SLA compliance. Operations Center translates the custom properties into SQL in order to access the data from the external data source and generate SLA metrics as well as root cause failures.
Use Operations Center reporting features to monitor and report on the SLA metrics.
Section 3.1, “Configuring a Data Source,” on page 35